Their acting
skills had to go with their vocal perfection. They specialized in the roles
of the king, the queen, the guard, and the tea-boy. That’s all. The
opera director wanted to adapt Shakespeare into an opera setting, so they
developed a list of major characters. Most of their plays were based on four
characters. All other people in the plot were mentioned in a dialogue projected
on the backdrop, in a photographic form or as movies that were recorded for
battle scenes brought from major movie productions. There were also other
projections used, of people eating or dancing. It all worked, but the stage
was still three-dimensional. This is when they decided to bring in the robots.
They were called Papero I, II, III, etc. They looked like people and could
follow the paths precisely. Paperos could change the display of they costume
in seconds, to say nothing about the tone of their voice, the language, and
all the facial expressions displayed on their current mask. Now, on the top
of remembering their role and acting patterns, the singers had to learn the
robots’ trajectories. The following year they plan to add virtual
reality floating objects set between the rows, allowing the audience for
interactive learning experience in the opera house.